Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 22, 2017 Letters
Dear Editor,
Even Joe Harmon and the Cabinet find Minister Volda Lawrence’s explanation for the $606M no-tender, sole-sourced $606M emergency purchase of medicines from Ansa McCal incredulous. She is being asked to make a second attempt. This morning, she made another scandalous explanation. Clearly, Minister Lawrence and APNU+AFC are twisting like pretzel to explain another scandalous deal, as APNU+AFC sinks further into the cesspit. Who is responsible? The buck stops somewhere.
The first stop is the Minister of Public Health. The final stop is the President. The President insists that people will be disciplined if there were wrong doings. There is no dispute anymore that there were wrongdoings. So will Minister Lawrence be disciplined? Minister Lawrence’s first and second explanations so far are steaming garbage. Minister Lawrence cannot be serious when she justifies the Ansa McCal contract on the basis of a donation of refrigerators worth a few hundred thousand dollars for a transaction of more than $606M with overpayment of almost $300M.
It is apposite to note that for over a decade the New GPC provided warehouse space of thousands of square feet, including cold storage for free, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Minister Lawrence for good measure defended the high prices because the supplier had to air-freight the medicines. Again this cannot justify sole-sourcing and cannot justify the absurdly inflated prices. The resort to a petty donation as justification for a $606M contract is obscene and insulting.
Minister Lawrence insists that she had to approve the contract because of the shortages of supplies and was, therefore acting in the interest of the people. But these shortages have been chronic since June 2015. These shortages did not suddenly appear. In fact, George Norton, the former Public Health Minister, this past week confessed that the Public Health Ministry has been plagued with medicine shortages since June 2015. In early 2016, Norton had explained that the shortages had to do with the implementation of a more accountable procurement arrangement. This makes Minister Lawrence’s explanation an unholy smokescreen.
While rampant chronic shortages of medicines exist in the public health system since June 2015, the “emergency” claimed by Minister Lawrence was not driven by these shortages, but was an engineered “emergency” designed to provide “rewards” to chosen beneficiaries. With chronic shortages, why would tenders for medicines advertised at least five times since October 2016 delayed and cancelled, even as recently as February 2017 in the face of serious debilitating shortages? It is because the sole-sourced contract for $606M worth of medicines was intentional. The “emergency” is less about responding to shortages, but rather an engineered platform for a sole-sourced contract.
The Minister identified “moles” as part of the problem. But “moles” did not cause the shortage, cancellation and delays of tenders compounded chronic shortages. Moles did not sole-sourced items for an “engineered” emergency worth over $606M, the Minister approved the contract. The “moles” did not transact a corrupt deal, the GPHC and the Ministry of Public Health, part of the APNU+AFC machinery, committed a corrupt deal. Lawrence further cast blame on rogue staff of the GPHC and the Public Health Ministry for complicity in creating the “emergency”. But shortages of medicines, delays and cancellation of tenders have been going on now for almost 20 months, while APNU+AFC stoutly denied shortages in Parliament and to the public.
Minister Lawrence also equated the “emergency” with the non-delivery of medicines by contractors who failed to supply medicines even though they were given contracts and paid. She neglected to provide information about the delinquent suppliers. There is information that certain suppliers bid low prices in 2015 and 2016, some through sole-sourced contracts and failed to deliver, seeking to renegotiate the prices. But these are not reasons for sole-sourcing, unless the Minister is now saying that only Ansa McCal is qualified to supply medicines to the Public Health system.
Unfortunately, sole-sourced contracts have become well-entrenched for procurement under APNU+AFC. An examination of the Ministry of Public Health 2016 budget for medicines reveal that out of the almost $2B spent only about $200M could be accounted for by publicly tendered contracts. All the rest were from sole-sourced procurement. Worst, the pattern fits perfectly into the “Trotman Thesis” that political donations are investments with expectations of State favors which APNU+AFC considers legitimate obligations.
APNU+AFC got caught with its hands down and it is now engaged in a game of obfuscation, deliberate lies and blaming others. This is plain and simple conspiracy, nothing less. The Guyanese people must show unreserved revulsion at the abuse of tax payers’ money.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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